Four months out from PyeongChang 2018, less than a third of tickets sold

Olympics - 12 Oct 2017

Author: Jonathan Rest

Ticket sales for the PyeongChang 2018 winter Olympics remain sluggish, particularly among the local public, less than four months before the games begin.

A sales update from the local organising committee, released yesterday, showed that just 30.3 per cent of 1.07 million tickets have been sold so far.

As little as 20.7 per cent of the 760,000 tickets put aside for South Koreans have been sold, while almost 60 per cent of the 320,000 tickets reserved for foreigners have been sold, albeit this quota includes those awarded to authorised ticket resellers in each competing country and therefore does not necessarily equate to a purchased ticket.

According to the Korean Herald, just 17.2 per cent of ice hockey tickets – traditionally a hot property at the winter Olympics – have gone, with sales levels at 11.5 per cent and 13.4 per cent for luge and Nordic Combined events, respectively.

The situation is even more dire for the Paralympic Games, where only 4.2 per cent of all tickets have been sold.

In an attempt to allay concerns, an official with PyeongChang 2018 said: “We expect most of the ticket sales to occur two to three months before the event. Many Koreans tend to put off getting tickets until the last minute, and we believe that offline sales will be considerable.”

The organising committee will hope that a promotional event to coincide with the launch of the Olympic torch relay in South Korea from 1 November will spark an increase in ticket sales.

Last month, the Korea Federation of Banks announced it would buy Won1 billion ($880,000) worth of tickets for the games.